The background: It didn't even occur to us how inextricably linked goth and grunge were until we heard Erika M Anderson, who used to be in legendary bands we've never heard of such as Gowns, about whom a journalist from the Village Voice was once moved to declare: "Holy fucking fuck!" Apologies for the swearing so early on, normally we wait till paragraph two to get worked up. But then, Anderson, who now goes by the name EMA, will do that to you. (Note to her record company: you can use that – "EMA: she's curse-inducingly good.") It's true, though: listening to her debut album Past Life Martyred Saints, you start to make connections between Siouxsie and Sonic Youth that you didn't know existed.

Make that country, goth and grunge. This is one of the things – the joys, you might say – about EMA: she blurs genres until suddenly, or rather slowly and with a sense of measured menace, a gentle prairie ballad will bleed into a coruscating noise-out, as though she was channelling Emmylou Harris and Neil Young. Not that either of those venerable musicians is dead, though for a while we did start to wonder whether ol' Neil's muse might have passed on. But that's EMA all over: one minute she's singing sweetly, the next she's using a nicotine rasp so hoarse they could play it to kids as a warning against the perils of smoking. It's quite disconcerting.

Sometimes it happens within the same track, this shift between playing and singing styles, between reverie and drone, din and silence. Red Star, for example, is like hearing Young's Hey Hey, My My performed by the Dixie Chicks, with Nico on guest methadone, sorry, vocals. On seven-minute album opener the Grey Ship, EMA employs her sinister-soothing voice over an acoustic siren song that, halfway through, abruptly changes course (and other seafaring metaphors). California is as eerie and spacious as the titular state and makes us think of EMA as Sissy Spacek in Badlands. Anteroom is quiet but filled with portents of doom, even death. Milkman is less Benny Hill than Beth Coast meets the Breeders. Marked is the definition of brooding, while Breakfast ("Mama's in the bedroom, don't you stop") sounds like the sort of lullaby a serial killer might sing to a sleeping child.

The buzz: "Sumptuous bass drop and meditative drone that places her somewhere between Cat Power, Neil Young and My Bloody Valentine" – thequietus.com.

The truth: She's got the voice of a Kim (Gordon or Deal) and the guitar prowess of a Cat (Power).